The Stuff Of Dreams
by r4ven3
Summary: Harry begins dreaming, and these are not ordinary dreams. Completely and utterly AU, set sometime in S.9. 3 chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: Completely random nonsense. Not to be taken seriously_**

* * *

The thudding inside his skull was met suddenly by other sounds, barely a disturbance in the air around him. And then he heard words – `coming around'; `be gentle with him'; `respiration'; `honeymoon'; `head wound'. The last two words stayed with him, explaining as they did the percussion section of the London Symphony, which seemed to have taken up residence inside his head. _Perhaps I've passed out on the floor of the Albert Hall._

"Mr Pearce …... can you open your eyes?"

The voice was female, unfamiliar to him, but kind and gentle. He tried to open his eyes, but nothing moved. He was tired …... so very tired …... and he felt himself fall back into the comfort of the pillows as he again lost consciousness.

When Harry again awoke, the percussionists seemed to have gone home, having left behind a metronome, ticking away with irritating regularity. He tried to imagine a tune inside his head, but the only one which seemed to emerge from deep inside him was `_Ob-La-Di Ob-La-da_' by The Beatles. He'd rather have heard just the metronome.

"He's surfacing again," he heard a quiet voice, male this time.

"Mr Pearce. Harry. Open your eyes."

He felt a hand on his arm, and then fingers touching his fingers. He grasped those fingers, hoping they belonged to someone he knew, someone he loved – or who loved him.

He opened his eyes.

And all he saw was furry light, interspersed with darker shapes which appeared to dance in front of his eyes. He was reminded of a lava lamp, only one in black and white, not purple and lime green. He felt fingers, hands on him, as the head of the bed was raised, and someone was taking his temperature.

"That'll be all, Nurse Wridgeway," he heard an authoritative male voice from close beside him.

The man's face emerged from the gloom, young, Asian, slim, handsome, no doubt a doctor. Harry stared at the man's face, and nodded, his way of saying he was ready to listen. He was still too tired to speak.

"Mr Pearce. Harry," the man said. The man's voice faded in and out, as Harry tried hard to concentrate on what he was saying. He'd heard the man give his name – Dr Murali Rao – but the rest was a jumble of sounds. And then he heard some words spoken very clearly indeed. "I have some bad news for you."

Harry frowned. Bad news?

"You were in a car accident, and you sustained head injuries. With bed rest you will heal. I am sorry to be the bearer of such sad news, but Mr Pearce, your wife didn't survive the accident."

_Accident? Wife? I have no wife (although not from lack of trying.)_

Harry's fingers grabbed the bedclothes, and it was then he felt something he'd not noticed before. He lifted his left hand to see the gold ring on the third finger. He _was_ married …... but to whom?

"Did you hear me, Harry? Ruth – your wife – she died in the accident. I'm so very sorry."

* * *

Harry awoke with a rapid intake of breath, and sat up, almost falling off the bed. He was in his own bedroom, in his house in London. He was alone in bed, and there was no indentation on the pillow beside him. He lifted his left hand, and looked – there was no wedding ring. He lay back against his pillow, and breathed out heavily. His head hurt, but that was probably the whiskey he'd drunk the night before. He could remember the whiskey clearly, but had no recollection of anything else …... anything which would induce an hallucinatory state.

He arrived at work a little later than usual to see everyone where they should be, and that included Ruth. He called his team to the meeting room, but only half his mind was on the briefing. His dream had been too detailed, too _real_ to have been just a dream. He began to formulate an idea.

"Tariq," he called to the young technical wizard, as he crossed the Grid. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" Tariq rose from his chair and followed Harry into his office.

"Harry, can you look at this, please?"

"Not now, Ruth. See me after I speak to Tariq."

He briefed Tariq for no more than five minutes, and then sent him on his way. Hot on Tariq's heels was Ruth, a printout in her hand, her eyebrows knitted together in a frown. Harry indulged himself for a moment, and watched her while she shuffled through the papers in her hand. He liked the idea of being married to her, but he had no idea how they could ever reach that state of bliss, given the stalemate in their relationship …... if avoiding one another, and being painfully polite could be considered a relationship. He'd marry her tomorrow, given half a chance. They could sort out the relationship side of things after the nuptials. Plenty of people did that, and often rather successfully.

She'd been talking for the best part of four minutes, and he'd not been listening to a word she said. He'd been thinking about kissing those lips, running his hands over those hips, lying next to her in bed, their bodies …... _Jesus, Harry, give it a rest. She said no!_ Whatever she'd said, it would be a few minutes before he'd be able to stand up and step away from the desk.

Ruth was still talking, oblivious to her employer's mental meanderings. "These are the accounts that I think are the source of the transfers," she said, "and Tariq is still running a search on the accounts at the other end. There seems to be an absence of a pattern, and that worries me."

"Ruth," he interrupted, because he wasn't really listening anyway. He knew she'd only come to share this information out of habit, and the excitement of her find. He was very proud of her, but perhaps she was not his to be proud of. "I trust you with that information. I'll act in whatever way you consider wise."

Ruth's face could not have been more surprised. "Alright," she answered. "I just wanted you to remain …... in the loop. You know?"

Harry nodded, and she left, bewildered by his lack of questioning. Harry always asked questions.

* * *

Everyone had left for the day. Everyone except Harry, Tariq and Ruth. Ruth had buzzed in and out of Harry's office all day, and had he not known better, he would have been forgiven for believing that she was attempting to heal the rift between them. Throughout their long day on the Grid, she'd brought him one cup of coffee, and three cups of tea, not all at once, of course, but at regular intervals. When she'd left the Grid for lunch – and he'd been busy, so had remained at his desk – she'd brought him a sandwich and a latte from the lunch bar across the street. He'd wanted to ask her to stay with him while he ate it, but she'd left his office before he'd plucked up the courage to ask.

Just before 7 o'clock, Tariq knocked on Harry's office door, waiting just inside the door until Harry had finished his phone call.

"Harry, I got that information you wanted."

"And?"

"There is a Nurse Jessica Wridgeway working in ICU at St Thomas' Hospital. She began there 6 months ago, having finished her training only a month earlier. There is no Murali Rao at that hospital, or any other in London, or outer London."

Disappointed, Harry pursed his lips and twisted them in a `tough shit' kind of expression.

"_However _…..." Tariq put undue emphasis on the word. "There _is_ a Murali Rao finishing postgraduate studies in trauma medicine at Queen Mary, University of London."

"Internship?"

"He's currently filling in at St Bede's. But in March, he's due to complete his internship at -"

"St Thomas'?"

"The very same."

Harry sat back in his chair, feeling like he'd been punched by a prize fighter. "Thank you, Tariq," he said quietly. "That was very good work."

It was as Tariq silently left the office that Harry knew what he had to do.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Thank you to those who have reviewed. I am fascinated by your reactions ... as well as some of the possible solutions to Harry's dilemma. Such `solutions' are all the more interesting to me because I had the whole story written before posting, and there *is* a solution (one which does not necessitate the taking of lives!)**_

* * *

The next time it happened, Harry knew he was dreaming.

He had been avoiding Ruth at work, and trying to be as business-like as possible whenever he'd had to interact with her. Suddenly, he had no hope for them, and he hated how empty this left him feeling. More than that, he felt saddened by the confusion on her face whenever he fobbed her off, or walked past her desk on the Grid without acknowledging her. He'd even considered inventing a new woman in his life, but that would be too cruel, even for him, and he was not sure he could carry that off effectively. His head could do it without thinking about it, but his heart …... well, his heart was still in pieces from when she'd turned him down. _We move on from this._ Who was he kidding?

The dream began in the same way …... the thumping in his head, the voices weaving in and out of the percussion section, the black and white lava lamp in front of his eyes. This time, the only word missing was `honeymoon'.

Nurse Wridgeway took his temperature, and Dr Murali Rao spoke to him about his injuries.

"You've been lucky, Harry," the doctor said.

"Ruth?" Harry struggled to say her name. "My ….. my wife."

"There was no-one with you, Harry. And your …... your records make no mention of a wife. I'm told your car was a write-off."

Harry nodded, relieved that the only thing which had been destroyed was replaceable. He lifted his left hand, and there was no ring on his finger.

He awoke from his dream gradually, with none of the shock of the first dream. As his consciousness slid into the present, he knew that he had to keep away from Ruth. That was the key to keeping her alive …... and he _must_ keep Ruth safe. He couldn't live with himself were something to happen to her as a result of her association with him.

It was only after waking from this second dream about his post-accident self that Harry recognised that he had been gifted the power to change his future. To him, it was clear what the dreams were telling him.

He got out of bed, and wandered into his en suite bathroom, performing his usual early morning rituals without thinking about them. He loved Ruth with everything he had, but he couldn't allow himself to get close to her again. He wanted that more than anything, and she seemed to want to heal the rift between them which had begun the day of Ros's funeral …... the day he'd proposed to her.

Why had he proposed to her? He looked at his image in the mirror while he was shaving, taking care to not nick his skin.

Because he wanted her in his life. Because he loved her. Because he knew she loved him still. Because he was scared …... that were he not to have acted then, she could be the next of his team to die unexpectedly.

Suddenly, it all made sense to him. He wanted her close to him – in his house, in his life – and yet while being that close to him, she would be more likely to be in danger, so how can he expect to keep her safe? That question was a step too far for that time of the morning. For the time being, he knew what he had to do.

* * *

Harry had two days straight of meetings, and it was only on the third day that he had time to call his team together for a meeting.

"Where's Ruth?" he asked, once they were seated around the table.

"She went home early yesterday, and called in sick this morning," Beth reported.

"What's wrong with her?"

"Flu, I think. She's barely left her room."

"You mean you don't know? You share a flat with her, and you don't know what's wrong with her?"

He saw the look pass between Beth and Dimitri. He also knew that Beth and Dimitri were spending time together outside of work. Ruth had hinted that Beth was rarely home, and why.

"I don't interfere in her life, nor does she in mine," Beth replied carefully, and Harry decided to drop it.

He was distracted throughout the remainder of the meeting. Ruth was sick, Lucas was God-knows-where. His team was falling apart. On a positive note, Tariq's findings were creating a 3D picture of the movement of money around the world. Harry thought the lad would do well in the field of finance, but he seemed to enjoy his digital spy work.

Despite an urge to do otherwise, Harry didn't ring Ruth. He knew her. She'd be back at work in a few days.

And she was. Ruth only took off two full days, and when she returned to work, she worked as hard, and with as much dedication as ever. Harry was businesslike, and often abrupt towards her, but she seemed to not notice, and if she did, it appeared to not bother her. They continued in this way for another three weeks.

It was a Friday night when only Harry and Ruth and Tariq were left on the Grid. Harry deliberately stayed in his office, poring over a pile of files which Ruth had delivered to him in late afternoon. He barely heard the office door slide open, so that by the time he looked up, Ruth was standing in front of him, across the desk from him, her eyebrows knitted in concern. She waited until she had his full attention.

"Harry," she said seriously, "we need to talk."

Oh, God. He hadn't planned for this eventuality. He believed that Ruth would be hurt, but she'd get on with her job, and leave him alone. That way, she'd be free to live a long and fruitful life …... without him. He stared at her, not sure how best to respond. No man alive knows how to respond to the words: `We need to talk.'

"Could we …... could we have a drink together? A coffee and a bite to eat. I've noticed you not eating …... and …."

Harry wanted to say no – his head said _Nooooooo!_ But his heart, on the other hand, was curious, and Harry was a believer in following one's curiosity.

"Just give me fifteen minutes, Ruth, and then we can go somewhere nearby."

He hoped that by agreeing to join her, to _talk_ to her – _alone_ – that he wasn't somehow leading her to her death.

* * *

They each ordered coffee and a small bowl of pasta.

"What's this about, Ruth?" he said after some time. They each picked at their pasta, the silence between them eating away at their appetites.

"I want to apologise to you."

"Whatever for?"

"I know that turning down your proposal of marriage hurt you, even though you didn't show it at the time. It's now clear to me how hurt you are, and I'm sorry if I caused any of that."

Harry had no reply to that. What was there to say?

"I know how you behave when you're hurt, Harry. You crawl back into your cave."

"You make me sound like a bear."

"Yes, you're a lot like a bear. Combative, grumpy, ferocious, noisy when disturbed, but you can be really sweet, too."

"Sweet? No man wants to be thought of as sweet, Ruth."

She smiled at him, then dropped her eyes, and played with the spoon beside her cup of coffee. "I …. I'd like to apologise for anything I may have said which has hurt you. I often speak without thinking …... and I've thought a lot about this. I miss you, Harry. I miss our closeness. I miss …... what we had, and what we ... might have had."

Harry sighed heavily. He couldn't keep pushing her away. He couldn't. It was hurting her, and it was hurting him …... and if he was being honest, it was exhausting him. "What do you propose, Ruth?"

"I'd like it if …... if we could be friends."

"I can't just be your friend, Ruth. I can't be …... satisfied with that. I'd rather be your friend than nothing at all, but …. I need more than friendship." _So much for good intentions._

"Harry, has something happened …... just lately? You've pulled away from me only in the past few weeks, since I had the flu. What's different? Tell me."

Harry was mirroring Ruth's movements, tipping the spoon one way, and then the other, watching it to see what was reflected in its rounded silver surface. He decided in that moment that he needed to be honest with her.

"I have something to tell you, Ruth. I need to know that you won't laugh at this."

Ruth nodded, and so Harry told her about the dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Third and last chapter. Thanks for reviewing. Hope you have enjoyed this. Things get a little silly in this chapter.**_

* * *

By the time Harry had finished telling Ruth about the two dreams he'd had, they'd both finished their coffee, and so she'd ordered them each another. When Ruth said nothing in reply to what he'd told her, he began to worry.

"Say something, Ruth."

"I don't know what to say to you, Harry. It sounds like you've been avoiding me because of a dream, but I don't see the connection at all. One is real life, while the other …... it's just a dream, Harry."

"Ruth …... I had the first dream a little over four weeks ago. In it, you and I were married, and you'd been killed in an accident while I survived."

"Yes, I got that."

"And in the next dream, which I had after I kept my distance from you, we were not married, and I still survived, and you must have also …... because you were not in the car with me."

"Who's to say that I hadn't been beaten up and murdered in my home on the same day you had your accident? Surely you're not ordering your life, and making your decisions based upon a dream."

"There's something else I need to tell you …..."

"Go on."

"Ruth …... when I was twenty, I dreamed that my mother had died, and five months later she was dead. Three months before you joined Section D, I dreamed of you, and how you arrived late on the Grid on your first day …... what you said, even the stupid thing I said. I dreamed it all, and then around four months before you had to leave London, I dreamed about our parting by the Thames. I dreamed of how cold it was, I dreamed of our kiss, and you asking me to let you go. When I had the dream, we hadn't even been out to dinner together, so I doubted that we would kiss like that, but it happened. The dream came true. So you see, Ruth, I know which dreams to take seriously, and the dream I had where you died in the car I was driving …... that was real."

Ruth stayed silent for a while, playing with the remainder of her pasta with her fork. "Do you think we could have something to follow this? I feel like cake."

"Alright. I feel like cake, too. In fact, I often feel like cake."

Harry ordered them each a slice of cake, and they were about to begin eating it when Ruth spoke.

"There's rather an easy solution to this problem, Harry."

"Yes, I need to stop sleeping, but I don't think that's likely to happen."

"No. Easier than that. What was the difference between the dream when I died, and the dream where I didn't?"

Harry thought for a moment. "We were married in the one where you died …..."

"And you were not married in the dream where you were injured, and no-one else died. It's easy. We vow to never marry."

Harry thought for a while, and then smiled. "It can't be that easy. Can it?"

"I don't see why not."

Harry watched her for a moment as she tucked into her cake, enjoying every morsel. He liked a woman with healthy appetites. He felt a flush pass through his whole body at that thought. Maybe …... just maybe.

"Er …. Ruth," he said at last. "Would you do me the honour of _not_ marrying me?"

Ruth looked up from her cake, and her face broke into a wide smile, one which lit up her eyes and had his heart beating rapidly. "I'd really love to not marry you, Harry."

"So …... what does that mean?"

"It means we're free to see one another socially, I suppose, but we should not expect there to be wedding bells any time in the future."

Harry smiled at her across the table, and she smiled back at him. Perhaps this would work after all.

* * *

7 months later:

Harry found himself in a hospital waiting room, having no memory of how he got there. There were other people around him, mostly men younger than he, as well as some middle-aged men and women. Most seemed anxious, although many had iPods plugged into their ears. The high-pitched spill of the music from the collection of earphones sounded to him like a swarm of mosquitoes. He hated that sound. It always set his teeth on edge.

"Mr Pearce?"

Harry looked up to see a nurse beckoning to him.

"She's ready to see you now, Mr Pearce. We needed to clean up the little one first."

He was led into a smaller room, and in one of the beds was Ruth, sitting up, holding a newborn baby in her arms. Harry noticed her name on the card beside her bed: _Ms Ruth Evershed_.

"Would you like to hold him?" Ruth said, lifting her tired, but radiant face towards him.

"I'd love to," he said, "but is it alright? Isn't he a bit battered and bruised?"

"Not as battered as I am," Ruth replied, her smile still wide, although to his eyes, she looked like she needed to sleep for a very long time.

Ruth handed the baby to him, and he looked down into the eyes of his son, and saw Ruth's brilliant blue eyes looking back at him.

"He has your eyes," he whispered.

"And he has your pout."

"All babies pout."

Harry awoke suddenly, and gasped as he drew in a loud breath. He sat up, and turned towards the person in bed with him. Noticing her sleeping peacefully, he hesitated for a moment before he shook her shoulder.

"Ruth, wake up."

He couldn't help but smile as she opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. He was so happy that the sight of his face first thing in the morning always evoked such a response from her. She reached up and grasped his face before she kissed him ….. and she kissed him so well.

"Ruth, this is important."

"More important than giving me a good morning kiss?"

"Yes." He sat back against his pillow, and then looked back at her. "Are you pregnant?"

"What? Of course not. Why?"

And then he told her about his dream.

"Maybe it's the effects of the drugs you're on for that head injury, Harry."

"But it was just like the other dreams, and you must admit that writing off my car, and sustaining a head injury was a high price to pay for proving my dreams to be portentous."

"Mmm. I'm not pregnant, Harry. I'd know if I was, and in all likelihood, I'd know before you."

Harry kissed her again, but this time he lingered on her lips, waiting for her to open her mouth to him. When she did, he slid his arms around her, and drew her to him, and then rolled over so that he was above her. Early morning sex with Ruth was still the best sex of all. In a couple of hours, they'd both walk on to the Grid smiling, and their smiles would immediately lift the mood of everyone around them.

* * *

Later that morning, as Harry and Ruth walked on to the Grid together, their smiles lit up the room, and everyone shared a collective sigh of relief. It was going to be a very good day.

As Ruth left Harry at the door to his office, and headed towards her desk, she privately pondered the risk of missing one day of the contraceptive pill. Surely just one day wouldn't matter, would it? It was just one teensy weensy little tablet, and she'd forgotten to take it five mornings ago when Harry had awoken without a headache (from his car accident), after not having had sex for over three weeks. She just couldn't deny him when he needed her so much, and after that, her body had been loose, and her mind had been mush, and she'd forgotten, and she hadn't remembered that she'd forgotten until the next morning. Or was it the morning after that?

They'd be fine. Ruth was sure of that. She was certain – almost – that not all Harry's dreams came true. Sure, some of them did – well, most of them ….. perhaps all of them – but this one wouldn't.

It couldn't.

Ruth tried to work, but her mind wasn't fully on her job. She got up, and visited Harry in his office.

"Harry …... do you know the name of the nurse in the dream you had this morning?"

"Yes. It was RN Megan Loftus. She had her name on one of those name tags."

"You read it …... in your dream?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, nothing."

"It's not nothing, Ruth. What is it?"

But Ruth had already left his office, and headed back to her desk.

She waited fifteen minutes or so, until Harry was again fully occupied, before she headed to Tariq's desk.

"Tariq," she said sweetly. "could you do some research for me? I need to know if this person works at any of the London hospitals," and she handed him a post-it note with a name on it.

"Oh, right. Can you give me any more details?"

"She works in maternity. No hurry, though. Do it in your spare time. I know you're busy."

"Not too busy for you, Ruth."

Ruth smiled at him, and returned to her desk. She knew Tariq would find nothing.

Ruth had forgotten about her request until in mid afternoon, when Tariq called to her. "Ru-uth ….. found her."

_Oh, shit_.

* * *

_**A/N:**__** Sorry about the odd ending. An odd ending for an odd story.**_


End file.
